Vancouver 2010 Olympic Gamesofficially XXI Olympic Winter GamesThe XXI Olympic Winter Games opened in Vancouver, B.C., Can., on Feb. 12, 2010. To celebrate the Games, Britannica is pleased to offer a broad selection of information on Vancouver and the Olympics, including a video highlighting the city’s history and geography; an interactive map of the Olympic venues; a brief history of the Winter Olympic Games and past Canadian Games, with tables featuring International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidents, sites of the Olympic Games through the years, and medal winners of 2006; a colourful photo gallery; and daily highlights of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Vancouver’s Olympic quest began in 1998, when the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) selected the city over Calgary and Quebec for Canada’s bid to host the 2010 Winter Games. The bid was technically a joint venture between Vancouver and the Coast Mountains resort town of Whistler, which lies about 70 miles (110 km) north of Vancouver and was the proposed site of most of the Games’ skiing and sliding events. The Vancouver bid to host the Games was shortlisted along with those from Bern, Switz., P’yŏngyang, N.Kor., and Salzburg, Austria, in August 2002. Bern withdrew its bid one month later after a referendum indicated that most Bern voters did not want to pay for the Games. On July 2, 2003, the final vote of the IOC was held in Prague. In the first round of balloting, P’yŏngyang captured 51 votes, while Vancouver trailed in second place with 40 and Salzburg received 16. Salzburg was eliminated for the second round of voting, which Vancouver won 56 to 53, bringing the Olympic Games to Canada for a third time (Montreal had hosted in 1976 and Calgary in 1988).

Vancouver City InformationFounded:1886Area:44 square miles (114 square km)City Population (2006):578,041 (8th largest city in Canada)Metropolitan Area Population (2006):2,116,581 (3rd largest metropolitan area in Canada)

Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet (an arm of the Strait of Georgia) to the north and the Fraser River delta to the south, opposite Vancouver Island. The city is just north of the U.S. state of Washington. It has a fine natural harbour on a superb site facing the sea and mountains.

Vancouver was originally a small sawmilling settlement, called Granville in the 1870s. It was incorporated as a city in April 1886 (just before it became the western terminus of the first trans-Canada railway, the Canadian Pacific) and was renamed to honour the English navigator George Vancouver, of the Royal Navy, who had explored and surveyed the coast in 1792. In 1929 two large suburbs to the south, Point Grey and South Vancouver, amalgamated with Vancouver, and its metropolitan area became the third most populous in Canada. By the 1930s Vancouver was Canada’s major Pacific coast port. After World War II it developed into Canada’s main business hub for trade with Asia and the Pacific Rim.

For more Britannica coverage, see Vancouver.

Notable Events from the Vancouver Winter GamesFebruary 24:Canada took both the gold and silver medals in the women’s bobsled. With the U.S. winning bronze, Germany’s women’s bobsled teams were denied a medal for the first time in Olympic and world championship history.Lydia Lassila of Australia won the gold medal in women’s aerial skiing, four years after she was felled by a devastating knee injury in the same event at the 2006 Winter Games.China was awarded the gold medal in the women’s 3,000-metre short-track relay after four-time defending Olympic gold medalist South Korea was disqualified during the final.February 23:Carlo Janka of Switzerland captured his country’s first giant slalom gold medal in 26 years. Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud took silver, and his countryman Aksel Lund Svindal won bronze.Austria won the Nordic combined team gold medal for the second consecutive Olympics.February 22:Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took the ice dancing gold medal, the first win in the event for any North American country.Austria dominated the team ski jumping competition, easily beating Germany for the gold medal.The women’s and men’s cross-country team sprint events both had close finishes and were won by Germany and Norway, respectively.February 21:Germany took the gold medal in the two-man bobsled event. It was driver André Lange’s fourth career Olympic gold, the most of all time for a bobsled driver.U.S. skier Bode Miller captured the first Olympic gold medal of his career by winning the men’s super combined event.The newest Olympic event, ski cross, made its debut, with Michael Schmid of Switzerland taking the men’s gold medal.February 20:Swiss ski jumper Simon Ammann won the individual large hill event, seven days after capturing gold in the normal hill event. Ammann’s double win gave him four career individual Olympic ski-jumping golds, the most of all time.South Korea’s Lee Jung-Su captured his second gold medal of the Games by winning the 1,500-metre short-track speed skating event. U.S. skater Apolo Ohno placed third, and his bronze medal gave him the most career medals (with seven) in American Winter Olympics history.The women’s super-G event was won by Austria’s Andrea Fischbacher. In winning Austria’s first Alpine gold medal of the Vancouver Olympics, she reversed a disappointing start to the Games for the historic skiing power.February 19:Amy Williams of Great Britain prevailed in women’s skeleton, becoming the first Briton to win an individual Winter Olympic gold medal in 30 years.The men’s super-G Alpine skiing event was won by Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal, giving the reigning World Cup overall champion his first Olympic gold.February 18:Evan Lysacek of the U.S. won the men’s figure skating gold medal over favorite Yevgeny Plushchenko of Russia, the defending gold medalist.Biathlete Tora Berger won the women’s 15-km individual event, garnering Norway’s 100th all-time Winter Olympic gold medal, the most in the history of the Games.Germany’s Maria Riesch took gold in the women’s super combined Alpine skiing event.February 17:Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn became the first American woman ever to win a gold medal in the downhill event.Shani Davis of the U.S. successfully defended his 1,000-metre speed skating title from the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. In so doing, he became to first man to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals at that distance.Russian cross-country skier Nikita Kriukov beat countryman Alexander Panzhinskiy in a photo finish in the 1.6-km sprint event.Snowboarder Shaun White capped off a banner day for the American Olympic team by winning the men’s snowboard halfpipe event in dominant fashion.February 16:One day after her countryman Mo Tae-Bum won South Korea’s first long-track speed-skating gold medal in the men’s 500-metre race, Lee Sang-Hwa captured the gold in the women’s 500-metre event.Maelle Ricker of Canada took the host country’s second gold medal of the Vancouver Games by finishing first in the women’s snowboard cross.The women’s luge event was won by Tatjana Hüfner of Germany.February 15:The husband-and-wife team of Zhao Hongbo and Shen Xue from China won the pairs figure skating gold medal—the first figure skating gold in China’s Olympic history and the first time since 1960 that a team not from the U.S.S.R. or Russia captured the pairs gold.The men’s downhill final was won by Switzerland’s Didier Défago, now the oldest men’s downhill Olympic champion, age 32 years 136 days. Défago’s winning run was only 0.07 second faster than that of silver medalist Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway and 0.09 second faster than that of American Bode Miller, who took the bronze.American Seth Wescott took the gold in the first snowboarding event of the Games, the men’s snowboard cross.February 14:Skier Alexandre Bilodeau won the men’s moguls event and thus became the first Canadian to capture a gold medal in an Olympics held in Canada.In response to the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, an attempt was made to make the luge track slower and safer by shortening it. Felix Loch of Germany took the gold medal when the men’s singles luge event was held this day.France’s Jason Lamy Chappuis edged out Johnny Spillane of the U.S. by four-tenths of a second in the Nordic combined normal hill event, the closest finish at a Nordic combined event in Olympic history.February 13:Simon Ammann of Switzerland was awarded the first gold medal of the Vancouver Olympics after winning the normal hill ski jumping event.Slovakia’s Anastazia Kuzmina won the first Winter Olympic gold medal in her country’s history by scoring a surprise victory in the women’s 7.5-km biathlon sprint.Short-track speed skater Apolo Ohno took the silver medal in the men’s 1,500-metre race, which was his sixth career Olympic medal, tying speed skater Bonnie Blair’s record for the most career Winter Olympics medals won by an American.February 12:Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after crashing during a practice run hours before the Vancouver Olympic Games were set to open.Technical difficulties caused delays at the opening ceremonies—the first Olympic opening ceremonies held indoors—which featured Canadian Olympic greats such as skier Nancy Greene, ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, and basketball player Steve Nash.

Canada and the Winter Olympics in Pictures

Notable Athletes Competing at the Vancouver Winter Olympics

A number of prominent athletes who have had past Olympic success will be competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics. While other less-known competitors will surely make their marks on the upcoming Games, the following athletes are all leading medal contenders in their respective sports.

The first organized international competition involving winter sports was introduced just five years after the birth of the modern Olympics in 1896. This competition, the Nordic Games, included only athletes from the Scandinavian countries and was held quadrennially in Sweden, beginning in 1901. Figure skating was included in the Olympics for the first time in the 1908 Summer Games in London, although the skating competition was not actually held until October, some three months after the other events were over. The great Ulrich Salchow (Sweden) won the first Olympic gold medal awarded for men’s figure skating. British skater Madge Cave Syers captured the first women’s title and won the bronze in pairs with her husband, Edgar Syers. Anna Hübler and Heinrich Burger of Germany won the gold medal in pairs.

In 1911 Count Eugenio Brunetta d’Usseaux, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from Italy, suggested that Sweden should either include winter sports in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm or stage a separate Winter Olympics in the same year. Sweden, concerned that such a move would jeopardize the Nordic Games, refused. Germany supported plans to stage a competition of winter events in early 1916 as part of the Games of the VI Olympiad scheduled for Berlin later that year. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 caused the cancellation of the Berlin Olympics and made the question of Winter Games moot.

At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belg., athletes competed for medals in figure skating and ice hockey, despite continuing protests from the Scandinavian countries. Nordic nations dominated the figure skating events. Swedish skaters Magda Julin and Gillis Grafström won the women’s and men’s singles competitions, respectively, while Ludovika Jakobsson and Walter Jakobsson of Finland won the pairs. Another Swedish skater, Svea Norén, won the silver in women’s singles, while Norwegians captured silver in the men’s and pairs events, as well as the bronze in the men’s singles. Only the British team and American Theresa Weld, who won the bronze medals in pairs and women’s singles respectively, prevented a Scandinavian sweep. Canada captured the gold medal in ice hockey, with the United States winning silver and Czechoslovakia finishing with the bronze.

Two years later an agreement was reached to celebrate an IOC-sanctioned International Winter Sports Week. It was held in Chamonix, France, from Jan. 25 to Feb. 4, 1924, and was a huge success. Norway topped the medals table with a total of 17, and the Scandinavian countries, which altogether captured 28 of the 43 medals awarded, dropped their previous objections. The following year the IOC altered its charter to create a separate Winter Olympics. The Games staged in St. Moritz, Switz., in 1928 were formally designated the second Winter Olympics.

From 1928 the Winter Games were held every four years in the same calendar year as the Summer Games. In 1986 IOC officials, in response to concerns over the increasing cost and logistic complications of the Olympics, voted to alter the schedule. Only two years separated the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, and the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Nor. Thereafter the Winter and Summer Games were each held quadrennially, alternating in even-numbered years.

The Olympic Games in Canada

Vancouver is the third Canadian city to host an Olympiad. Montreal, Que., was the site of the 1976 Summer Games and Calgary, Alberta, hosted the 1992 1988 Winter Olympics. The following summaries of the two previous Canadian Olympics are taken from Britannica’s Olympic Games article.

The 1976 Montreal Summer Games

Despite producing 32 world records and a host of memorable performances, the 1976 Games drew more attention to the apparent problems of the Olympic movement. Twenty-six countries, mostly from Africa, chose to boycott the Games when the IOC denied their request to ban New Zealand, whose national rugby team had recently toured South Africa. Taiwan also boycotted, when Canada, which officially recognized the People’s Republic of China, would not permit Taiwan to be identified at the Games as the Republic of China. Questions arose about the integrity of the competition itself. Many athletes—particularly the East German women swimmers—were suspected of using anabolic steroids to enhance their performance. There was also concern that the amateur spirit of the Games had been undermined by the growing commercial influence on sports in the West and the pervasive government control of athletes in the Eastern bloc countries. The Montreal Games were a financial disaster, placing a burden of debt on the people of Canada and Quebec that lasted for decades.

More than 6,000 athletes competed, representing 92 countries. There were three double gold medal performances in the track-and-field competition: distance runner Lasse Virén of Finland repeated his 1972 double of the 5,000- and 10,000-metre events; Cuban Alberto Juantorena won the 400- and 800-metre runs; and Soviet runner Tatyana Kazankina earned gold medals in the 800- and 1,500-metre runs. East German Waldemar Cierpinski won the first of his consecutive Olympic marathon gold medals. Legendary hurdler Edwin Moses of the United States earned his first gold medal.

The swimming was dominated by the American men and the East German women. The American men, led by John Naber (who took four gold medals), won all but one event and set 11 world records. Kornelia Ender, winner of four gold medals, led the East German team as it took 10 of the 11 individual events and set eight world records.

Nadia Comăneci of Romania won three gold medals and scored a perfect score of 10 seven times in gymnastics. Women competed in basketball and rowing for the first time. Pertti Karppinen of Finland won the first of his three career gold medals in rowing. The U.S. boxing team—starring Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, and Ray (“Sugar Ray”) Leonard—won 5 of the 11 divisions.

The 1988 Calgary Winter Games

The city of Calgary first organized a bidding committee for the Winter Olympics in 1957; 24 years later it was awarded the 15th Winter Games. The influence of television on the Games spread even deeper than in past years. The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) paid $309 million for the television rights, and advertisers were able to influence the starting times of events to maximize their products’ exposure. Many charged that the Games resembled well-rehearsed shows instead of sporting contests.

In figure skating Katarina Witt (East Germany) retained her title in the women’s event. The men’s figure skating competition was dubbed the “Battle of the Brians” as Brian Boitano (U.S.) and Brian Orser (Canada) vied for the gold. Though Orser held the edge in international competition, Boitano was victorious at Calgary, skating a nearly perfect performance to narrowly defeat his Canadian rival.

The women’s speed skating competition was marked by upsets. While most attention was focused on the East German women and the American Bonnie Blair, Yvonne van Gennip of the Netherlands dominated, winning three gold medals. Blair and Christa Luding-Rothenburger (East Germany) claimed the other two golds.

In the Alpine events the supergiant slalom (super-G) was added, and the Alpine combined returned after being absent from the Olympics for 40 years. The stars on the slopes were the flamboyant Alberto Tomba (Italy) and Vreni Schneider (Switzerland), each of whom won gold in both the slalom and giant slalom events.

Nordic skiing underwent numerous modifications at Calgary. Team competitions were added in the Nordic combined and the ski jumping events. Cross-country events were revamped because of the “skating technique,” which was introduced at the 1984 Games. The men’s 15- and 30-km races and the women’s 5- and 10-km races were skied using the classic style. The longer distances and relay events used the freestyle, or skating, method. Ski jumping was dominated by Matti Nykänen (Finland), whose three gold medals made him the most successful male athlete at Calgary.

Turin 2006: A Look Back

In 2006 the Winter Games returned to Italy after a 50-year absence. Unlike the 1956 Games, which were held in the small resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo, the 2006 Games were hosted by Turin, an industrial city and provincial capital located in northwestern Italy. The competition venues were spread between seven villages (most in the mountainous Piedmont region to the west) and Turin, and beforehand there was some concern that the widespread Games would suffer from logistics problems and low attendance. The concerns proved to be unfounded, as the competitions were both exciting and well-attended. The festive side of the Games was greatly helped by the nightly medal ceremonies held in the Piazza Castello, Turin’s main piazza. IOC president Jacques Rogge, impressed with the large, happy crowds that the medal ceremonies routinely attracted, suggested that the concept be carried over to subsequent Olympiads.

The Games were attended by approximately 2,600 athletes representing 80 countries. New events included speed skating team pursuit, mass-start biathlon races, and snowboard cross, which pits four boarders against each other in a thrilling race downhill through a series of jumps and sharp turns. The women’s snowboard cross final produced the most drama when American Lindsey Jacobellis, who seemed assured of victory after the other three racers fell at the top of the course, took a tumble on the last jump and was passed by Switzerland’s Tanja Frieden. American snowboarder Shaun White, known as the “Flying Tomato” because of his long red hair, entertained onlookers with his back-to-back 1080s (three full turns in the air) on his way to claiming the gold medal in the halfpipe competition.

The Alpine competition was marked by the surprising success of the Austrian skiers, who won 14 medals in all, including gold medals in the women’s downhill and super-G by Michaela Dorfmeister, and by the disappointing performance of the American team led by World Cup champion Bode Miller, who was entered in five events but earned no Olympic medals. Michael Greis of Germany won three gold medals in biathlon events, but his success was overshadowed by the drug controversies in the Nordic skiing competition. Olga Pyleva, a Russian silver medalist in the biathlon, was disqualified after failing her drug test. Coach Walter Mayer, who had been banned for suspicion of blood doping, was discovered in the Austrian camp, resulting in an investigation of 10 athletes.

The Russian team dominated the figure skating competition, collecting three gold medals and a bronze. Men’s champion Yevgeny Plushchenko and pairs champions Tatyana Totmyanina and Maksim Marinin gave exceptionally brilliant performances, while ice-dancing gold medalists Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov skated without mistakes to win a somewhat lacklustre competition. Irina Slutskaya, the favourite in the women’s competition, had to settle for the bronze medal after Japan’s Arakawa Shizuka gave a dazzling performance to win her nation’s first gold medal in that event.

Canadian Cindy Klassen and Italian Enrico Fabris were the stars of the speed skating competition. Klassen won five medals in all—one gold, two silver, and two bronze. The young Italian collected two gold and a bronze, outshining American favourites Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis. German speed skater Claudia Pechstein won two medals in Turin, bringing her career total to nine and making her the top medal winner in her sport’s Olympic history. Ahn Hyun-Soo of South Korea dominated the short-track skating, winning three gold medals and one bronze.

Turin 2006 Final Medal Rankings

The table provides the final medal rankings of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.

Sites of the Modern Olympic Games

The table provides a list of the sites of the modern Olympic Games.

International Olympic Committee Presidents

The table provides a list of the International Olympic Committee presidents.